Release the package

[dshemetov]

This is a discussion thread for requirements for releasing the package.

What does releasing the package entail?

• converging on a stable interface
  • this means breaking changes can't be made easily (requires a long warning process)
  • documentation and vignettes should be clean, friendly, and polished
  • error messages should be clear, friendly and informative
• publicizing the package, refactoring old code to use this package
• onramp to CRAN publication (not necessarily, but probably eventually)

Requirements documentation

See this thread for a checklist of features from original documents.

• The original PRD
• Client library feature list

TODO

• Close remaining P0 issues
  • Finish adaptations to API keys
  • Clean and polish package documentation
  • Clean and polish vignettes
  • Mark covidcast_epidata() as experimental #145
  • Consider fetching by default? #144
• Check that remaining P1 issues do not break user interface
  • Address build-args typo in ci #124 involves CI
  • Line-wrap warning and error messages from the API #119 is a messaging line-wrapping issue
  • Should we support as.tibble instead of as.dataframe for covidcast_data_sources and covidcast_data_signals? #112 is a consistency for an internal that's marked experimental
  • Eliminate remaining references to "character string" #109 is a documentation change
  • covid_hosp_facility_lookup should warn/error for not implemented cases #98 is a package-level error for an API level error
  • Update issues&lags exclusivity checks to also consider as_of #92 is the same
  • Use consistent naming for covidcast data_sources/sources  #53 is fixed
  • consider optimizing package organization for autocomplete/user assist #10 concerns an experimental feature we won't release
• Another documentation polish
  • Get Ryan's feedback
  • Get Alex's feedback
  • Get Kean Ming's feedback
• Tasks after the review session on August 22nd, 2023.
  • Move tibble to suggests and make as_tibble optional #152
  • Make the frontpage of the docs more friendly #151
  • Consider adding download caching to the client #29
  • Consider fetching by default? #144
  • as.data.frame() methods don't match the generics #147
  • Make CI fail on check warnings, not just errors #148
  • Should we support as.tibble instead of as.dataframe for covidcast_data_sources and covidcast_data_signals? #112
  • Update styling commands to work similarly across systems #55
  • Update package contributors #157
• Final tasks
  • docs+feat+lint: final polish #168
  • Blog post
  • Submit to CRAN
    • Talk to Alex about CRAN hoops to jump through: what else is needed or do we just email someone and upload?
    • Read through CRAN submission guidelines
    • Choose maintainer (this needs to be specified in the DESCRIPTION)
  • Celebrate with a chocolate apple!

[willtownes]

I tried building the package on my local machine and got the following warning:

checking S3 generic/method consistency ... WARNING
as.data.frame:
  function(x, row.names, optional, ...)
as.data.frame.covidcast_data_signal_list:
  function(signals, ...)

as.data.frame:
  function(x, row.names, optional, ...)
as.data.frame.covidcast_data_source_list:
  function(sources, ...)
See section ‘Generic functions and methods’ in the ‘Writing R
Extensions’ manual.

All the tests passed and there were no other errors, warnings, or notes.

[dsweber2]

@capnrefsmmat caught that here #147. Glad that's consistently the only thing though.

[dshemetov]

It's here! 🎆🎆🎆

https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/epidatr/index.html